OPINION: Lessons from Charlotte and the RNC

On Monday, the Charlotte City Council narrowly voted (6-5) to support holding the Republican National Convention in the Queen City. To say the debate was heated would be an understatement. Councilman Justin Harlow compared the decision to welcoming “a Klan rally to Charlotte” and Councilman Braxton Winston compared President Trump to “a human avatar of white supremacy.”

The controversy surrounding what is unquestionably an economic boon to the city (and thus, traditionally a relatively noncontroversial vote by the council) underscores two growing trends in American politics—and two that relate directly to North Carolina and what we can expect come November.

First, as this examples makes clear, our local and state politics are increasingly nationalized. Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil liked to quip that “all politics is local.” And in O’Neil’s time in office, this was certainly true. Local politicians could campaign and make decisions somewhat apart from national political tides. It was not unusual, particularly in the South, for one party to perform well at the national level and another at the state level. Perhaps nowhere was this truer than in North Carolina. In 1984, Republican Ronald Reagan garnered 62 percent of the presidential vote in North Carolina, while the Democrats held 71 percent of the General Assembly seats and 80 percent of the state’s county commission seats. Ticket-splitting was common, and elections were often described as “candidate-centered” rather than “party-centered.”

As political scientist Daniel Hopkins recounts in his recent book, “The Increasingly United States,” however, Tip O’Neil’s oft-repeated adage had a relatively short shelf life. Today’s local and state elections are increasingly nationalized. With each passing year, knowing how a state or locality voted in the presidential election explains more and more about how that state or locality will vote in subnational elections. Party platforms are increasingly similar between states and, not surprisingly, voters tend to identify with parties writ large, rather than differentiating between local, state and national candidates. Recent research on special elections demonstrates that they, too, are less about the individual and more about national political tides.

Charlotte city councilors, therefore, were not merely making a local decision, but rather were engaged in another battle in the increasingly nationalized partisan debate that defines American politics today. Looking forward to 2018, we can expect that opinions of Donald Trump will be salient not just for Trump’s potential re-election, but for the outcomes of North Carolina’s General Assembly, city council and county commission elections, as well.

The debate over Charlotte’s hosting of the RNC also underscores the polarization that defines our politics nationally, statewide and locally. Using available measures of partisan ideology, it is clear that our members of Congress in North Carolina increasingly reside toward the extreme ideological ends of each party. In fact, 23 out of the 25 most conservative terms ever served by members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation were served by members of our current congressional delegation.

Our current General Assembly exhibits similar patterns of polarization. Today’s members of our General Assembly are, on average, more conservative than members of just a few years ago. And while we don’t have similar data available on county commissioners, we do know that just shy of half of the state’s county commissions are made up entirely of members of one political party. This is an increase of almost 10 percent from 10 years ago and illustrates clearly that our counties have less and less in common with one another.

Rather than representing a break from recent politics, the debate over whether Charlotte should host the RNC reflects these broader trends that guide our politics. And we shouldn’t expect to see anything different come November.

Christopher Cooper is professor and department head in the Department of Political Science and Public Affairs at Western Carolina University. This is the fourth in a monthly series of columns that will run through the end of 2018.